#i wanted them to work so bad

[rebelrainfall]

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[bixels]

In the past, people in the Animal Crossing community would make fun of Tom Nook as a sleazy landlord. Since then, he's really rehabilitated his image as this 'heart of gold' businessman (he's the one who puts bells and furniture in trees for you to find! he adopted orphans! he donates to charity!), but New Horizons genuinely paints the most devious version of him.

He's successfully privatized settler colonialism: you pay HIM to move to a "deserted island" (which apparently the oceans in the AC world are just full of) and start a colony that he is directly invested in. At best he's running a weird vacation package scam (you arrive on the island with no money and in debt for "using his services"). At worst, he's using you to set up company towns. For god's sake, he literally has his own fake currency that he forces you to use to pay off your debt. But don't worry, he's repackaged it in a way that definitely doesn't sound like an MLM scam: the Nook Mileage Program!

You're no longer just his tenant or his temporary part-timer, you're his business lackey. The entire tutorial section of the game has you spending actual weeks running around completing tasks and doing hard labor to set up his colony. You're even tasked with preparing his properties and finding buyers for them. No, you aren't a tenant anymore. You work for the landlord. You are directly responsible for finding tenants for him. And he doesn't even fucking pay you. Not for setting up town hall and museum, or his nephew's shop –– which is the ONLY store on the entire island that sells necessities –– or bringing KK Slider to town, or helping populate his town. Not a single cent. No, actually, you have to pay HIM to BUY infrastructure like bridges and stairs and park benches. And all the while, he's telling you're the "resident representative"; you get to call the shots! That the reward is the community's progress. That what you're doing is in everyone's best interest (but most importantly, his).

Since NH's release, people have done a lot of legwork to say that Tom Nook isn't a capitalist while the game shows him at his very worst. He owns the only general store in town. You're forced to use a phone that he modified and branded as his own. Buy Nook-branded furniture and merchandise at the self-serve kiosk in the town hall, a governmental building! There's no conflict of interest here!

But hey, if you're tired of being the landlord/business mogul's goon, you can also find work as a deluxe resort home designer for a company that also pays you in their special company currency that can only be used to buy their products instead of a real salary! Because that's what the Animal Crossing franchise needs! More vacation homes!!!

[heartorbit]

figure skating set right now please. thanks

[fallenrain40]

labels are optional btw. i've seen some people complain about microlabels and how they are confusing, unnecessary, but the thing is. those labels are OPTIONAL. the people who use microlabels are using them because they feel that's what works best for them. you don't have to use any label you don't want, even if it's description technically matches you. that's why things like ace and aro are spectrums. you could use a microlabel, or if you feel it works better to just call yourself ace/aro, or simply aspec, there's options. and you don't even have to use any of them if you don't want. you can go unlabeled. it's all up to you what you want to use for yourself. nobody is forcing you to use a label you don't want. that's literally the opposite of what we want htgfsdsf

my point is, if microlabels don't work for you, then just don't use them. don't start trying to invalidate others who do use them. microlabels exist so you have more options.

[inkskinned]

there are a lot of posts out there that are positive and healthy coping mechanisms for handling the holidays. this is not one of them :)

i think there's like. going to be times in your life you will be stuck in a social situation that you cannot escape from gracefully. i do not know why the internet doesn't believe these times exist. it's not always just that your physical safety is at risk - sometimes it's legit like "i just don't currently have the energy or time to put in the effort of responding to this." sometimes it's a coworker you hate so much. sometimes it's just like, fine, you know? like you know you can handle your aunt when she's cheerily horrible, but if you actually set a boundary around her, it's going to be weeks of fallout with your father.

i don't know why people think the answer is always just "cut them out!" or "don't let them get away with that!" because ... the real world is tricky and complicated. i think kind of a lot of us have an internal "radiation poisoning" meter for certain people. like - i'm talking about the ones who are absolutely giving you gradual ick damage. like, you can handle them, but you'll be exhausted.

and yes. you absolutely should listen to your therapist and the good posts about handling others and set good boundaries and take care of yourself. prioritize peace.

HOWEVER :) ...... since im often in a situation with a Gradual Sense of Ick person i cannot just "cut out" of my life (without losing someone else precious to me) - i have sort of developed the most. maladaptive form of mischief possible. because like, if i'm going to have to listen to this shit again, i like to have a little bit of private fun with it.

now! again, i am physically safe, just mentally drained by this man. you should only do this with people you are not in danger with. which leads me to my suggestions for when your Unfortunate Acquaintance shows up and says oh everyone pay attention to me.

my favorite word is "maybe!" said as brightly and happily as possible. whenever the Horrible Person starts in on a topic you do not want to go further with, particularly if they make a claim that you know to be inaccurate, do not respond to it. you and i have both tried to actually argue with this person, and it hasn't gone well, because this person just wants the drama of an argument. however, "maybe!" gives them literally nothing to go on. it is incredibly disarming. they are used to people having some response. they know they can't prove what they're saying, and maybe! treats them like the child they are. it dismisses them in the politest way possible.

i like to say maybe! and then, in their stunned silence, immediately change the subject. this is because i have adhd and i will have something unrelated to talk about, but if you can't think of topics fast enough, i recommend just pointing to something and saying, "isn't that lovely?" because fuck you let's bring in some positivity.

by the way. that second trick - of pointing to something and stating an opinion about it? - that just works on its own, like, 70% of the time. i picked it up from teaching preschoolers. it's an intentional "redirect". it stops children crying and it also stops grown adults from finishing their explanation on why women belong in kitchens. dual wielding!

keep it silly for yourself. i absolutely do not care if people think i'm fucking stupid (it's more fun if they do) and as a result i will purposefully misunderstand things just to see how long it takes them to realize i've completely removed them from the subject at hand. when they say "women aren't funny" i get to be like. "which women." "all women." "all women in america?" "no in the world." "like the mole people? the people in the world?" "what? no. like, alive." "oh are we not counting the mole people?" "what the fuck are you talking about." "you don't believe in the mole people?"

similarly, i play a personal game called "one up me." my Evil Acquaintance literally knows this game exists (my family & friends caught onto it and now also play it) and it always fucking gets him. i don't know why. you have to be willing to be a little free-spirited on this one, though. the trick is that when they make one of those horrible little bigoted or annoying comments they are always making, you need to go one unit weirder. not more intense, mind you - just more weird. "you don't look good in that dress." "yeah, actually, my other dress was covered in squid ink due to a mishap at the soup store." "you shouldn't wear such revealing clothes." "wait, what? oh shit. sorry, your son tears off strips when no one is looking and eats them. i swear it was longer before we left the building."

the point of "one up me" is to completely upend this person's narrative. we both know this person likes setting up situations where you cannot "win" and then they really like telling other people how badly you handled it. in a usual situation, if you respond "please don't say something that rude", you're a bitch. but if you let it happen, you're letting yourself be debased. they are not usually expecting door number three: unflappably odd. because what are they going to say when they're telling everyone how badly you behaved? "she said my son eats her dresses" ".... okay?"

if you can, form an allyship with someone whomst you can tagteam with. where they can pick up on your weird "soup store" story and run with it.

the following phrase is amazing and can be deployed for any situation: "oh, be nice :) it's the holidays!" i do not know why this works as often as it does. i'll say it for the most random shit. i think this is bc most of the time these people know they're being impolite, they just like to fight.

godbless. when in doubt, remember that you could always start stealing their pens.

the whole point of this is - if you can't escape. maybe see how long you can just be. like. a horrible little menace.

[owlyjules]

"Hmm...Thats a weird dog."

Little fantasy illustration for myself before I go back into way too many projects.XD

(Maybe this guy will reappear...He might be a friend of a certain blue bird Monarch...👀👀👀)

[utane]

I want the boatman to catch his little birdie (We getting ambitious with the poses tonight)

[collophora]

Do yourself a favor and go read the entire fanfic work of @fanfoolishness

(In order: Under sun and shade, Blind Side, and Breathless (patching up is one of my fav too, I just had no cool sketch idea for it)

[sbeana]

the pool scene

[bigfatbreak]

fun fact, when mlp first came out in 2010, I had an entire comic I'd been drawing by hand with markers about my pony ocs which were guards in the royal castle. I still have the original 62 pages. fucking insane. anyway here's redraws of two of them lmao

Garden ("En") the "painted pegasus", who's mother was a zebra and who's pa was a pegasus. he was protag of the comic and YES I shipped him with princess luna WOOO LETS GOOOO

this guy was actually a background character more than anything. he was used here and there but he wasn't one of the central characters at all, he was friends with two other captains who WERE central characters. but I popped off with him so-

BEHOLD!! OLD ASS ART... FROM MY BEGINNER DAYS....

[fisherrprince]

Instead of writing a fanfic like a normal person this oneshot turned into two separate, contextless things,

[teenytraveler]

"Papa!"

just my daily missing dad Loid time feat. his kids 🥹

(the baby's name is James!)

[kugisakiss]

as promised, the spy x fam parody AU

I had some fun thinking about this like 2 years ago and only made a couple of sketches at the time.. but then I started cleaning them up last month and before I knew it, it spiraled out of control to become this monstrosity. I can't help it, as you can all tell by now, I love coming up with scenarios to get all my little guys interacting with each other

some details i didn't put in:

the Kudou parents are absent like in the show

whatever is happening on Haibara's end is probably super messed up but I haven't thought of any of the details

Akai gets fancy tech stuff, like the voice changer, from Agasa. Agasa comes to help babysit Conan sometimes and he gives him all his little gadgets. Akai hasn't said anything about it but figures he could use it considering the amount of crime he comes across

the facility shinichi was in is like in the original story, it exists to research esp to create super soldiers which is why he knows everything he knows

Conan regularly eavesdrops on Akai and Rei's top secret phone calls which is how he learns their real names. He can't help it, he has really good hearing

Conan and Subaru have different last names because Conan thinks "Okiya" is lame and wants to keep the one he made up on the spot. Their story is that when Subaru and Conan's mother (Edogawa Fumiyo) married, they both kept their own last names and Conan was given Edogawa when he was born. They've kept it this way to "remember Conan's dead mother"

[chiyana]

Tim: lol you wanna wife me so bad it makes you look stupid

Kon: I do!

Kon: and it does!

Kon: C O N S T A N T L Y

[jicklet]

Ember and Wade in Elemental (2023)

[redactedcrowart]

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